‘Fussing over sweet F.A., as usual. What time is it?’
‘Just gone nine.’
‘A fine time to call me. I’ve got my suspicions about Hector and that girl.’
‘She’s got suspicions of her own by the sound of it.’
‘Piffle. She doesn’t know there’s anything wrong.’
‘That’s beside the point, Antonia. He’s been missed at work already. If you’re going to play the anxious wife you’ll have to call the police damn quick.’
Antonia slid her eyes in the direction of the drawing room where the corpse was lying. ‘How can I?’
Rose had no answer. She’d rejected everything Antonia had suggested.
In her mind’s eye she stood over Hector’s body with a hacksaw, bracing herself to use it. Revolting. Yet it was rapidly coming to that.
No. She’d reached her sticking-point. ‘There must be another way of dealing with this. A better way.’
‘Well?’ Antonia waited with the air of a schoolmistress expecting some glib answer.
Out of sheer desperation Rose talked, casting for ideas as she spoke. ‘We take everything out of his pockets that could be used to identify him.’
‘We’d have to do that whatever happened.’
‘Let me finish. And then we put him in the boot of the car and drive out and... find a bomb site that hasn’t been cleared.’
‘A bomb site — that’s a thought.’
Confidence surged through Rose like a drug. ‘We drop him into a hole and cover it with rubble. The chances are that he’ll never be found. If he is, they’ll think he was looting and had an accident. Or that he was just some tramp using it as a place to sleep.’
Antonia made a fist and feigned a punch. ‘Brilliant, Rosie! Let’s drink to it.’ She fetched two glasses and a bottle of the Burgundy, which she uncorked with one pull of the corkscrew. ‘Just one. Got to stay on our feet.’
They touched glasses. Antonia’s eyes may have caught some reflected light from the cut glass but it seemed to Rose that they shone with something more than relief. There was a gleam of triumph there. Almost of rapture. It was as if she was looking ahead to some sort of happy-ever-after.
Rose brusquely recalled her to the present. ‘Croydon is the place. I come through there when I visit my parents. It’s peppered with bomb sites.’
‘Croydon?’ Antonia spoke the name as if it were Timbuktu. ‘We don’t need to go that far when you’ve got a perfectly good site in Pimlico, darling.’
‘Where?’
‘Christ Almighty, if you don’t know ...’
Rose gazed at her in disbelief. ‘You can’t mean Oldfield Gardens.’
‘You bet I do. It hasn’t been cleared, has it?’
‘I am not going to bury Hector in Oldfield Gardens.’
Antonia rebuked Rose in a good-natured way. ‘Don’t be such a sap. It’s the ideal place. It’s not overlooked.’
‘No. I refuse. It’s much too near. It would be asking for trouble.’
‘That great poster screens it from the road.’
‘We’re taking him to Croydon.’
Antonia conceded tamely. ‘Have it your way if you insist, darling.’
Rose went out to the car. She had remembered the packet of disposal forms on the back seat. She brought them back to the house, gave them to Antonia and told her to make a fire of them. Antonia took them off to the drawing room, joking that if they helped to raise the temperature a few degrees the afternoon hadn’t been a complete waste of time. She was in a better mood now that they’d settled what to do with Hector, and she seemed appreciative of Rose’s more positive role.
Some time towards midnight Antonia came back to the kitchen. She’d changed into a sweater and slacks and she’d brought some down for Rose and dumped them on the table, together with a pair of flat shoes.
‘You can’t climb over bomb sites in heels.’
It was sensible. The things were dark blue in colour, too. Rose changed while Antonia went off to take another look at the body. She could have done with a size smaller in slacks, but the shoes fitted well. She was thankful to get out of her own things for the task ahead. It was like being back in uniform, which had always given her the feeling she was part of something impersonal, at several removes from her real life.
30
Antonia called out breezily that the body was ready to move.
Rose felt the gooseflesh rise again. Resolved to master her nerves, she reached for the wine bottle, poured herself some more and swallowed it at a gulp. ‘Coming.’
She joined Antonia in the drawing room. This time she didn’t flinch at the sight of the body. She did what Antonia had urged, faced up to reality and forced herself to take in the scene as if it were a waxwork tableau. More colour remained in Hector’s features than she would have expected. Perhaps the chloroform had roughened his cheeks. Antonia had already removed some money from the pockets and placed it on a table nearby, together with a wallet, a handkerchief and a set of keys. No one could possibly identify Hector now, she claimed confidently.
‘Ready, then?’ Rose said. They were acting on her initiative now. She was taking charge.
Antonia nodded. It was almost as if she welcomed the secondary role.
They bent over the body and took a grip. The muscles were noticeably less rigid now. There was some movement at the knees and hips.
Antonia took most of the weight, slotting her hands under the armpits. They stumbled to the door and across the hall, pausing outside the kitchen. In two more stages they lifted him out to the garage. The torso was difficult to get into the car boot, so Rose lifted the legs in first and then supported the small of the back as they heaved him inside.
She shut down the lid and leaned on it.
‘How’s the time?’
‘It must be after midnight. Rose, how long will it take to get there?’
‘Getting on for three-quarters of an hour. And then we’ve got to scout around for a place to leave him.’
‘Let’s fetch our coats, then.’
At the door on the way out, Antonia gave a girlish shriek of laughter. ‘What on earth are you bringing your handbag for?’
‘It’s got everything in it. My ration book. My identity card.’
‘Rosie, you’ll be the death of me. We’re not going shopping and we don’t want to be identified. Leave it behind. All we need is the key of the car.’
‘I forgot.’ Rose turned and threw the bag on to the kitchen table, annoyed at her own stupidity. To reassert herself she announced that she would do the driving. Antonia didn’t object.
Great Portland Street was almost deserted. Only when they approached the Oxford Circus end did they start seeing people in evening clothes standing far out in the road to try and hail one of the few taxis operating at that hour. Some waved at anything on four wheels and shouted their fury at being ignored. A fine drizzle was adding to their discomfort.
Rose switched on the wipers and glanced at the petrol gauge. They had ample. The Bentley fairly purred compared with the RAF staff cars she was used to handling. She took the route through Piccadilly Circus and the Haymarket towards Charing Cross, then followed the river as far as Vauxhall Bridge. At the lights she said she wouldn’t mind a cigarette.
Antonia didn’t respond.
‘I said have you got a fag?’
‘What, darling?’
‘A cigarette. My handbag is back at the house. Remember?’
Antonia found a packet of her wicked-smelling Abdullahs in the glove compartment.
‘Thanks. You were miles away.’
‘Mm.’
‘Thinking about America?’
‘What?’
‘America. Princeton, isn’t it?’
Antonia tensed beside her. The voice shed its mateyness. ‘How do you know about that?’